


Lattes and Cappuccinos

by lost_inthepost



Category: Alex Turner - Fandom, Arctic Monkeys, Miles Kane - Fandom, Milex - Fandom, The Last Shadow Puppets
Genre: 2008 fluffy puppies era because i am WEAK for it, Coffee Shops, Fluff, I wrote this all in one go so excuse me if it's bad, Just pure fluff because that's all i can do, M/M, can you imagine miles and alex serving you coffee though what a world that would be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 03:56:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10585929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_inthepost/pseuds/lost_inthepost
Summary: Miles just can't keep his eyes off the cute new waiter at his cafe.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! I just got AO3 so forgive me for being unfamiliar with how it works. This is a little one shot I decided to write one night when I really, really should have been doing uni work, and I finished it at 1AM so if it's not great, please be nice...uni life is hard :')) 
> 
> That being said, I hope you enjoy this cute lil piece of fluffiness, because we could all use some more fluff in our lives. 
> 
> Kudos and comments would make me absolutely explode with joy (you really don't understand I would probably squeal)

The Foxglove Cafe had never before seen such a spike in the number of complaints of mixed up orders.

Firing the new waiter - justifiable?

Miles thought so. Sure, it wasn’t Alex’s fault, exactly, that he just happened to be so infuriatingly cute that Miles couldn’t keep his eyes where they should have been. _He’s new_ , Miles told himself as he once again (it must have been the third or fourth time that morning!) found himself having to regretfully wrench his eyes away from the sight of the fluffy-haired young man, _I’m just keeping an eye on him._ His internal monologue snorted at that, and Miles couldn’t help but agree. Alex had been working here four days a week for almost two months now, he was hardly ‘new’, and he knew his way around the small cafe well enough not to require supervision. But what else was Miles to do? He just couldn’t seem to kick the bad habit he’d found himself trapped in since Alex had started work, and according to his ever-worried mum, there had been rumours floating around the small coastal town in which they lived that there was something ‘up’ with the normally stellar service at the Cafe, one of the better (and only) ones in the village. As the owner and main barista, he couldn’t exactly fire himself - so what choice did that leave him?

He knew, of course, that he could do nothing of the sort. Alex was one of his best employees; always earnest and ready to work hard, very friendly with customers if sometimes a little quiet, and truthfully, Miles had very quickly grown accustomed to being able to look across from the espresso machine where he spent the majority of his working day and see the small man fussing with change or chatting amiably with a customer, or when he was very lucky, meeting Miles’ wandering gaze with a bashful smile. And yet, something definitely had to be done.

“Miles, watch out!” Miles had been dreamily wrapped up in an extensive observation of Alex’s side profile as he dealt with a customer when, almost in slow motion, he watched the boy’s eyes widen suddenly, and connected the panicked words he’d vaguely registered with Alex’s open mouth. Gentle, cool fingers wrapped around his wrist, effectively pulling Miles out of his daydream and guiding his hand away from where he’d been just about to stick it in the pot of boiling milk he’d been absentmindedly preparing.

“O-oh!” He jerked away from the machine and froze for a split second, as Alex’s eyes searched his face. He willed himself not to blush under their thoughtful gaze - he really did have mesmerising eyes… “Oh, thanks, Al. Must have been off in me own world again.”

He smiled gently. “No problem.” The hand that had lingered on Miles’ skinny wrist slipped slowly away, and rested at his side once more. “You go there quite a bit, don’t you?”

 _Goddamn it!_ There was that blush; he felt it heat his cheeks and the tips of his ears, and cursed it. He was Miles Kane, he did not blush! Especially not just from the brief, arguably obligatory attention of a pretty boy. “Eh, I just love coffee. Really takes me to another dimension, yeh know?” he winked. _Jesus, Miles, what are you, fifteen?_

Alex shook his head - _fondly? No, surely not. More likely disgusted with how lame of a joke that was_ \- and turned back to the counter, ready to take the next order; it was a particularly busy morning. Old, or rather, bad habits must really die hard, because Miles found his eyes almost immediately taking a familiar path back up to his face and the corner of his mouth as the boy turned away. Maybe, though, if he hadn’t been looking at that little spot on his chin beneath his bottom lip, he wouldn't have noticed Alex’s lips moving, and even less likely would have heard him murmur, “You should take me there someday.”

Miles nearly tipped over his boiled milk.

 

***

 

Ok, this time he really had no excuse.

It was a Tuesday, traditionally, for some reason, their slowest business day overall, and it was only a few hours before closing time. This was the time everybody usually began to slack off; kitchen staff chatting away as they leisurely made themselves sandwiches and took what they wanted from the fridge, Alex often trading in the tiring work at the front counter for quietly wiping up empty tables and stacking unneeded chairs, and everybody asking Miles for coffees, to which he was happy to oblige. In such a relaxed, stress-free environment, no customer would expect there to be an issue, especially with a relatively simple order.

Those customers, unfortunately, had failed to take into account the fact that the man in charge of actually making their coffee was becoming more and more unreliable by the day, owing largely to the substantial crush they were developing on the cute waiter with the fluffy hair who had taken their orders. Case in point, the disgruntled woman who was now making her way to the counter holding half a cappuccino and sporting a very sour expression. Miles’ heart sank.

“Excuse me,” she began, clearly readying herself to launch into a scathing attack. Miles heard Alex gulp audibly beside him.

“Yes?”

“Do you know exactly what you are doing here?”

Before Miles could open his mouth to intervene in what he was sure was not about to be a pleasant conversation, Alex had responded with a bewildered “Pardon me?”, head cocked to the side, his hands frozen on the open till.

“I said, do you know what you are doing here?”

“I - I’m not sure I know what you - ”

“Is there an issue here?” Miles cut in smoothly, sidling up to Alex and ever so slightly directing his energy in front of him, as if to protect him somehow. In his time as someone who had worked in coffee houses almost since he was old enough to have a job, he had been in Alex’s position before, and knew very well how these types of interactions normally went down. Was it an important lesson in learning how to handle difficult customers? …Yes, _but_ , Miles reasoned, Alex needn’t be exposed to such rudeness _just_ yet…besides, whatever her complaint was, it was almost certainly Miles’ fault - apparently not even a near-empty business was enough to be able to get away with concentrating on how it might feel to be able to wrap Alex up in his arms and hold him very tightly, and breathe in the scent that he seemed to radiate of cigarettes and leather and something warm that reminded him of winter and…

“As a matter of fact, there is,” said the woman stoutly. “I would like to make a complaint about your staff and your products,” she huffed, shifting the fanny pack around her middle. Miles very nearly rolled his eyes, while Alex seemed to have been turned to stone and made no sound but for a small squeak.

“By all means,” Miles drawled.

“First of all, your coffee is horrendously overpriced, especially since I’m paying for the same kind of garbage I could get from a tin at home,” she began, her thin glasses slipping down the bridge of her long nose. “It took far too long to prepare, I was sitting there for five minutes before somebody even looked in my direction; disgraceful when there’s only one other customer here. You,” she directed at Miles, “are you the owner of this business? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, we ordered three cappuccino's and we got three latte’s, do you think I’m too stupid to know the difference?” She placed the half-empty cup none too gently on the counter, the ceramic clink it made ringing out through the now quiet space - the other workers had adopted similar positions to Alex; stock-still. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Absolutely not, I’m very sorry you - ” Miles said thickly, balling the hand on his waist into a fist.

“And as for your incompetent waiter - ” Alex flinched. Miles snapped.

“Alright. Thank you very much for your patronage, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” Miles snarled, actively pushing Alex half behind him and scowling down at the woman, pulse thudding in his ears and turning his cheeks scarlet again, this time, for a much less pleasant reason.

“I will not, not without a refund! Do you really expect me to pay for this rubbish after such second-rate service? I ought to - ”

Miles saw a hand being thrust out, but it was not his own. It pushed £20 into the woman’s claw-like hands with their long, somewhat distasteful nails. “There you are,” came Alex’s voice from behind him, his tone perfectly even and unaffected. “I even gave you a little extra. You sound like you deserved it. It must be pretty rough being a full-time tosser and a part-time cow.”

For one heart-stopping moment, there was utter silence as everyone strained to process what had just happened. Miles nearly choked on thin air. Alex smiled sunnily. Then it began.

_“Never in my life have I ever experienced such complete and utter insolence, you should be fired, all of you, I have never seen such a disgusting display of behaviour from a young man, this place should be shut down, you can guarantee I’ll be reporting you…”_

Fifteen minutes later, it was done, and when the bell tinkled behind the woman as she and her companions tramped away it almost sounded like it was mocking them. A heavy silence settled upon the cafe, and Miles stood, speechless. None of the other employees were game enough to break it, and the poor man who had been sat innocently in the corner with his hot chocolate and his croissant looked as though he was trying to plan his escape route. Just as Miles was about to attempt a joke, anything to lighten the mood, the sound of a muffled, boyish giggle reached his ears before he had even had the chance to make it. He turned to find Alex, rosy-cheeked and evidently trying to stop the laughter escaping. Miles wished he wouldn’t, despite the circumstances; it was a melodious sound.

“What’s so funny?” Miles murmured.

In response, Alex lifted the cup to his lips and took a sip from the lipstick-smudged edge, trying to avoid the chalky red substance as best he could. “These are cappuccinos. I watched you make them.” He held the cup out to Miles, surprisingly, up to his lips, and tipped it forward. It was cold, and tasted a little bit of lipstick, but it was undoubtedly a cappuccino. “In mugs and all, just like she asked, I’m surprised she didn’t come up ‘ere trying to tell us they were hot chocolates! Drank half of the bloody thing before she decided we got it wrong, the old bat!” He laughed properly, finally, the lighthearted sound seeming to dismiss the tension in the room. Before long, the other workers joined in with him, snorting and immediately launching into their own impressions of the lady’s spiel. One particular phrase, however, had predictably stood out in Miles’ mind, and he let the warmth from it fill him up from his toes to the tips of his Beatle-inspired hair.

“Are you alright, Al?” Miles asked quietly beneath the cover of the chatter of the staff, finding himself with a hand on Alex’s arm.

“Yeah,” Alex nodded dismissively, in turn finding himself totally alright with that. “I’m fine. Once I noticed the way she kept shaking her finger at me I couldn’t take her very seriously,” he said, and his face split again into a smile that put the midday sun to shame, chocolate eyes crinkling at the sides. “Besides,” he winked, “I’m not the one who can’t tell the difference between a cappucino and a latte.”

 

***

Alex didn’t work on Sundays. Suddenly, even if he was at his most productive all week, Miles didn’t like Sundays.

That was, until the bell tinkled one afternoon to announce the arrival of a slender, small figure, bundled in a thick grey coat against the chill and with locks of wind-tousled brown hair falling into his eyes and covering the reddened tips of his ears. It was quiet in the cafe again, the lunch rush had fallen to a laid-back trickle of customers, and Miles was leaning on the front counter which in his mind was Alex’s space, dragging his finger around to create patterns in the little piles of sugar he’d poured onto the countertop.

“Never in my life have I experienced such utterly shite customer service,” said a voice, and without looking up Miles could hear the grin on the speaker’s face. He snapped upright, coming face to face with Alex Turner, smirking wickedly at him and twisting his hands together to warm them up. The wind was blustering outside, carried in from the sea, and so far was not being very sympathetic to the residents of their little town.

“Ever so sorry ma’am,” Miles replied cheekily. “Apparently we’re gathering a bit of a reputation for that. Must be that new Alex Turner kid. I heard he’s a right tosser, part-time cow, too,” he went on, laughing when Alex shoved him gently over the counter with a quiet “Shut up!”

“Aye, sorry, Al. How’ve you been? Can I get you anything?”

“I’ve been well, yeah. Feel a bit lost on the days I don’t have work to look forward to, you know,” he said, eyeing Miles from beneath his unkempt fringe. “And, uh, yeah, two cappuccinos thanks, one sugar in both of them.”

“Two?”

“Yeah, I’m waiting on a date, actually.”

 _Oh_.

As though someone had thrown open the front door and left it to swing open in the wind, the room felt much chillier, though it seemed to Miles like it was coming from somewhere in his stomach and slowly spreading to each of his limbs instead of being inflicted from the outside. A date.

“O-oh. Ok. Two caps, on the house.”

“Oh, Miles, you don’t have to - ”

“I insist,” he said reservedly, gesturing to the table with the best view of the pretty street, effectively ending the conversation. Alex pursed his lips like he was refraining from saying any more, then nodded, a less than authentic smile on his face, before making his way to the table and curling up in the squishy upholstered armchair, his hand immediately flying up to his face so as to chew on a hangnail.

For those five minutes, Miles found it easier than he had in the last two and a half months to keep his eyes away from Alex and firmly on what he was doing, which, currently, was making cappuccinos for his crush and his crush’s date. If this was the universe’s way of making him like Sundays even less, it was succeeding. It was silly, really, how silly he’d been to think that Alex had been interested in him, as well - the lad was gorgeous, he could easily have had any guy or girl he wanted. A bitter part of Miles’ brain briefly considered intentionally messing up the drinks, just to take out a little bit of the hurt he wouldn't admit he was feeling on Alex - but, of course, he crafted both with the utmost care, even sprinkling on extra chocolate powder because he knew Alex had a sweet tooth, like him. He knew, however, that he was being petty when he placed both drinks on the table in front of Alex with nothing but a strained smile that felt out of place on his features and a clipped “There you are.” He knew he was being straight-up rude when he heard the bell tinkle after twenty minutes of keeping his eyes firmly anywhere away from where Alex was sat and turned from pretending to busy himself at the sink to see the boy disappearing back into the unforgiving cold, apparently sans date, and said nothing.

It wasn't until closing time when Miles was alone that he finally forced himself to venture back over to where he had been to tidy up what had been left there, that he discovered one empty cup, one cup completely untouched, and a napkin pointedly sticking out from beneath the dispenser.

 

_Seems I’ve been stood up - looks like my date was too busy working, the little busy-bee. His coffee is still here, if he wants it. I made sure to order his favourite - he likes sweet things. If you see him, tell him the incompetent waiter can't stop thinking about him, and that maybe if he could stop being so adorable, we might get something done around this place. We don’t want to get shut down, do we?_

_Al xx_

Beneath the message there was a phone number, a little picture of a wonky love heart, and what Miles guessed was supposed be a drawing of a cup of coffee. His heart leapt into his throat and started hammering away like he had recently downed three espresso shots in a row, and before he knew what he was doing, the napkin had been scrunched into a tight ball in his hand and he had taken off out the door, braving the elements in search of the back of a fluffy brunette mop of hair, the owner of which was not going anywhere without being kissed that afternoon.

***

A month later, the pair spent their Sunday afternoon tucked up on the loveseat near the window of the Foxglove Cafe.

“You’d think,” Alex said, hooking his ankles around Miles’ under the table as he sipped placidly at a caramel latte that was supposed to have been a mocha, “that since we got in Jamie as the part-time barista we’d stop having so many mixed-up orders.”

“Mm, you would, but I did notice him making eyes at the new girl just now. Katie, it were.”

“Bloody hell…if this place didn’t have a reputation before it’s certainly about to,” Alex smiled, shaking his head - _yes, fondly this time._

“You know what they say…all publicity is good publicity.”

“Even if it’s for 'utterly shite customer service?'”

“I dunno,” Miles said, kissing the back of their linked hands. “Worked alright on this incompetent waiter, didn't it?”

“Drink your cappuccino, you part-time idiot.”

“Love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading if you're still here!! You can also find this story on Wattpad under the same username, so if you're on there feel free to follow if you liked this story. 
> 
> Ok enough self-promo, hope you enjoyed this and have a great day!!!
> 
> Love, GG xx


End file.
